Richard Hooker - MASH - A Novel About Three Army Doctors

The Swampmen had several drinks on him and, when they got around to comparing cards, the colonel, who had shot an eighty-two, paid up willingly.

“Corny,” Hawkeye heard himself saying, “how about you and these other gentlemen joining us for dinner at Dr. Yama­moto’s Finest Kind Pediatric Hospital and Whorehouse?”

“Oh, I say!” the colonel said. “That sounds like sport!”

Shortly after 7:00 p.m., Me Lay Marston, idly sipping a martini in the bar of the FKPH&W, heard a commotion outside. Going to the door, he found Hawkeye, the British contingent and then Trapper John bringing up the rear. Trapper was trying to disentangle himself from the converts and the just curious.

“Me Lay,” Trapper said, when he got inside, “I’ve had enough of this. Get me a pair of scissors and a razor.”

In time Trapper John was shaved, shorn and showered, and dinner was solicitously served by the young ladies. While the visitors sipped after-dinner cordials, Me Lay excused himself to make his rounds at the adjoining hospital. In a few minutes he returned with a worried look.

“What had you guys planned for tonight?” he asked.

“Well,” answered Trapper, “we thought we’d get some …”

“How about looking at a kid for me?”

“Look, Me Lay,” Hawkeye said, “you’re supposed to be the intern in this …”

“Shut up, and come look at this kid.”

“What’s the story?” asked Trapper.

“Well, one of our girls got careless, and two days ago she gave birth to an eight pound Japanese-American male.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Every time we feed him, it either comes right back up or he coughs and turns blue and has a helluva time.”

“We don’t have to see him,” Trapper said. “Call that half-assed Army Hospital and tell them to be ready to put some lipiodal in this kid’s esophagus and take X-rays.”

“But it’s ten-thirty at night. We can’t get everybody out for a civilian. They won’t do it.”

“How much you wanna bet, Me Lay?” inquired Hawkeye Pierce. “Get on the horn and tell them the pros from Dover are on their way with a patient. Better tell the OR to crank itself up, because I got a feeling that you’re going to pass some gas while I help Trapper close a tracheo-esophageal fistula.”

“Oh, I say,” Colonel Cornwall wanted to know, “what’s that?”

“It’s a hole between the esophagus and the trachea, where it doesn’t belong,” Hawkeye explained.

“And you chaps can repair that?”

“Well,” said Me Lay. “We can try.”

At the 25th Station Hospital, the Officer of the Day received a call from Captain Marston saying that an emergen­cy was coming in for X-rays. Soon after, Hawkeye and Trapper, in Papa-San suits and followed by Me Lay carrying the baby, entered the X-ray department.

Captain Banks, the O.D., arrived and asked, “What’s this all about?”

“It’s all about this baby,” Hawkeye informed him. “We want to X-ray him and we want to do it right now, and we do not wish to be engaged in useless conversation by officious military types, of which you look like one to me.”

“But, we can’t …”

Hawkeye sat Captain Banks on fee edge of a desk and handed him the phone.

“Be nice, Captain. Call the X-ray technician. If you give us any kind of a bad time, me and Trapper John are going to clean your clock. We are frustrated lovers and quite danger­ous.”

Captain Banks called. While awaiting the technician, Trap­per and Me Lay placed a small catheter in the baby’s esophagus. A few minutes later, radio-opaque oil was injected through the catheter. It revealed the abnormal opening be­tween the esophagus and the trachea but no significant nar­rowing of the esophagus. This meant that anything the baby ate could go into his lungs but that, happily, once the opening was closed, the esophagus would be able to accommodate the passage of food. It required careful preparation, proper anes­thesia, early and competent surgery and good luck.

“Me Lay, let’s you and me get a needle into a vein,” Trapper said, and then, turning to Captain Banks, he said, “You there, in the shiny shoes, tell the lab to do a blood count and cross-match a pint. We won’t need that much, but it’s a term they’ll understand. Then tell the OR to get set up for a thoracotomy. We’re going to operate in about two hours. Hawkeye, you stick close to Alice, or whatever his name is, and see that he performs efficiently.”

The Officer of the Day had no choice but to perform efficiently. The nurses were routed out, not at all pleased at the prospect of operating a second time with the pros from Dover. There was, in fact, outright grumbling which Hawkeye Pierce brought to a rapid conclusion.

“Ladies,” he said, “we are sorry to get you out at this time of night. However, we stumbled upon this deal, and we can’t walk away from it, no matter whose rules are broken. This baby will die if we don’t fix him, so let’s all be nice and just think about the baby.”

Fortunately, nurses succumb to this kind of pitch. They gave up any show of resistance, particularly after they saw the baby, but Hawkeye caught Captain Banks calling Colonel Merrill.

“Now, Captain,” he chided him, “I may give you a few lumps, but first I must call the Finest Kind Pediatric Hospital and Whorehouse.”

So doing, he talked to Colonel Cornwall, explained their situation and made a few suggestions. Fifteen minutes later, as Colonel R. P. Merrill stormed into the hospital, he was met by four British officers who loaded him unceremoniously into their Land Rover and returned to the FKPH&W.

After Captain Banks had been stripped naked, and locked in a broom closet by the two Swampmen, the operation was finally started. Me Lay’s anesthesia was excellent, the nurses cooperated completely, and Trapper and Hawkeye indulged in none of the by-play that had marked their first local appear­ance. After an hour and a half of careful work, Trapper had closed the fistula. They shed their gowns and discussed the postoperative care.

“I think we better leave him here,” said Trapper. “You can’t take care of anything like this in that whorehouse hospital of yours, can you, Me Lay?”

“Not too well, but I don’t see how we can keep him here. Merrill will be all over us in the morning.”

“Leave the kid here,” Hawkeye said. “We’ll be in and out and can look after both him and the boy we did this morning. I know how to keep Merrill off our backs.”

At 3:00 a.m., back at the FKPH&W, they had a drink with the British officers who told them that Colonel Merrill was upstairs asleep, having been coaxed into having a drink and a sedative.

“But what about when he wakes up?” asked Me Lay.

“Send a naked broad into his room and take some pic­tures,” suggested Hawkeye.

“Oh, I say!” Colonel Cornwall said.

A few minutes later, Colonel Merrill began to stir and awaken as the girl joined him in bed. Witnesses to the scene filled the doorway while Trapper John leisurely shot a roll of film.

“I told you so! I told you so!” chanted Hawkeye. “He’s a dirty old man. A disgrace to the uniform.”

“The blighter should bloody well be cashiered from the service,” asserted Colonel Cornwall indignantly.

“I’d say that depends on his behavior from now on,” said Trapper John, pocketing the film.

The Swampmen were to tee off in the Kokura Open at ten o’clock the next morning. One of Me Lay’s assistants was instructed to obtain proper clothing, since they did not wish to wear Papa-San suits forever.

Awakening at 8:00 a.m., weary but determined to be ready for the tournament, they drank coffee, ate steak and eggs served in bed by the ladies of the house, and donned sky blue slacks and golf shirts.